Pummeled with horrific accounts of the attack, freighted with finding justice amid tragedy, the jurors had been pushed to near shattering.

“I personally felt subject to the same sort of trauma that some of the victims and survivors went through,” another said.

Now, imagine if that trial had lasted twice — even three times — as long.

The trial of Aurora movie theater gunman James Holmes, which starts Tuesday with jury selection, is expected to be so lengthy and arduous that it could strain the very process of justice it seeks to uphold.

Nine thousand potential jurors — one of the largest pools in American history — have been summoned for the case. If picked, jurors will be ordered to serve for as long as five straight months, longer than any state criminal trial in memory in Colorado. They will weigh whether Holmes was sane in July 2012, when he killed 12 people inside the Century Aurora 16 movie theater and tried to kill 70 others, and, if they find he was, they will decide whether he should be executed.

For their service, they will be guaranteed a wage of only $50 a day, a rate that could plunge their income to near the federal poverty level.

Even harder, during what will likely be the most stressful time of their lives, they will be forbidden from talking to anyone about the experience — not their family or fellow jurors or counselors. Until deliberations begin sometime late this year, the jurors will bear that stress in silence, despite a growing body of research that shows jury service on traumatic cases can lead to mental and physical illness and impact jurors’ decision-making.

Previous cases offer little guidance on how best to manage jurors’ burdens during the theater shooting trial.

Since the 1930s, perpetrators of public mass shootings nationwide are more likely to die at the scene than to be captured, according to research by Minnesota Department of Corrections official Grant Duwe. Of the 45 percent who were arrested, only a fraction ever faced a jury. And even fewer of those were charged with killing in an attack as devastating to the community as Holmes is for the Aurora theater shooting.

William Bowers, a researcher for the Capital Jury Project at the State University of New York in Albany, likens the theater shooting trial to that currently taking place for one of the suspected Boston Marathon bombers.

“There’s nothing really comparable to these cases in modern experience, in terms of duration of the trial and effect on the jury,” Bowers said.

STRAINS OF SERVICE

Colorado’s law on jury service couldn’t be more clear.

“Jury service is a duty that every qualified person has an obligation to perform when selected,” the statute reads.

But, at its most extreme limits, jury service can become less of a duty and more of an ordeal, legal experts say. Studies have shown that jurors in traumatic trials can suffer from insomnia, anxiety, anger and depression. One study documented cases of jurors who broke out in hives, developed ulcers or increased their alcohol consumption while serving at trials. And after the trial is over, some jurors have said they experienced flashbacks.

“Some people describe this in the same ballpark as post-traumatic stress disorder,” said James Acker, a colleague of Bowers’ at the Capital Jury Project, which tracks research on jurors serving in death penalty cases.

The stress can impact how jurors view the cases they are deciding, Bowers said. Jurors may find themselves identifying with either the defendant or the victims, and Bowers said about half of jurors in death penalty cases make up their mind about the punishment they will impose before they have even heard all the evidence.

“People decide about these things usually in light of the way they are emotionally affected by the crime,” he said.

In recognition of the strains of jury service, courts across the country increasingly offer counseling to jurors. Jon Sarche, a spokesman for the Colorado Judicial Branch, said counseling will be made available to jurors in the theater shooting case once the trial is over. But — because judges routinely order jurors not to talk about the case with anyone, to protect the trial’s integrity — counseling is almost never available to help jurors manage stress during the case.

Instead, often the best that jurors can do is to bond with one another, Acker said. Though they can’t talk about the case until deliberations, Acker said jurors frequently chat about sports, hobbies or their families during down time.

“When it works right,” he said, “they do have one another to draw on.”

STRESS OF MONEY

Money can add an additional stress during trial.

Colorado law requires employers to continue paying employees at least somewhat for the first three days of jury service. After that, employers may voluntarily pay employees on jury duty. In a survey by the Mountain States Employers Council, 42 percent of employers in the Denver area said they pay employees their full wages throughout the duration of their jury service, no matter how long it lasts.

But, about a third of Denver-area employers in the survey said they don’t pay anything beyond three days. Those jurors must depend on a $50-a-day payment from the courts — an amount that hasn’t been increased since it was put into law in 1990, when $50 had roughly twice the buying power that it does now. Because the theater shooting trial will take every other Friday off, jurors on the case receiving the $50-a-day wage will earn the equivalent of an $11,700 annual salary — before taxes.

Jurors can petition the judge to be paid more, but it’s up to the judge whether to approve the requests. Sarche said there are no plans to pay jurors in the theater shooting case more than $50 a day.

During jury selection, potential jurors can also ask to be excused because of the financial hardship they will suffer while serving. Such pleas are rarely granted.

“It is one of the last few responsibilities we have as a citizen,” said Cliff Stricklin, a prominent Denver defense attorney who has previously worked as both a prosecutor and a judge. “It’s to pay your taxes and serve on a jury.”

But, then, most criminal trials last fewer than five days.

John Ingold: 303-954-1068, jingold@denverpost.com or twitter.com/johningold

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